Our political landscape is ripe for sending up in the classic satire
written
by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.

The news that Yes, Prime Minister is to be recommissioned by UKTV after a 25-year absence from our screens will come as a delight to the legions of fans of the original programme. The show, along with its equally celebrated precursor Yes, Minister, ran for seven series, and proved a watershed in political satire, as well as making stars of Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne. Now the original writers, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, are sharpening their pencils for a revival, expected to screen early in the new year.

Will it work second time round? Critics have been quick to point out that both the political and comedic landscape have much changed in the intervening decades. The more pastoral political lampoon of the 1970s and 1980s, that chronicled the partnership of prime minister Jim Hacker and his Machiavellian permanent secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, has been replaced by something more ferocious, as exemplified in the bastardised love-child of Spitting Image and The Office that is the Channel 4 series The Thick Of It.

But if the stage version of the original show, currently touring round the country following a successful West End run (and in which I’m giving my Sir Humphrey), is anything to go by, nobody need worry. As is promised with the new TV series, the adaptation for the theatre has been updated and recast to reflect changing times. Jim Hacker’s beleaguered government is now in a hamstrung coalition with a smaller political party, a situation that suits the wily Sir Humphrey down to the ground. (“If the government wants to do something silly, we can make sure their coalition partners stop them.”) Other contemporary themes include sex scandals, a tottering eurozone, and salvation at the hands of a far eastern power with unlimited funds and a less than savoury human rights record. Just another day in Downing Street, in fact.

As if this wasn’t enough, there’s no shortage of fresh material readily available to be spun into comedic gold in time for the cameras to roll. As the managing director of the new project, Jane Rodgerson, has been quick to point out, the last seven days could happily fuel several episodes by themselves.

In any case, even old political jokes can be rendered fresh as paint by unfolding events. At the climax of the current stage drama, with Jim Hacker having triumphed over his manifold adversities and again secure in his premiership, news is brought to him that he’s secured endorsement for his policies from both Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. (“That’s all we need,” he crows, “the cabinet will never go against them.”)

“Give me their phone number,” remarks his PPS Bernard Woolley in response. “I’ll invite them to drinks at No 10.” A perfectly innocuous line for each of the last 71 shows, until, of course, last weekend, when Peter Cruddas was filmed offering places at David Cameron’s supper table in return for hefty donations.

Since then, the line has literally stopped the show on each of the last five performances – on the first occasion even to the bewilderment of the actors on stage. Lynn himself was taken aback by the reaction when I relayed the news to him on Thursday evening.

The moral of which is surely that, while governments may come and go, in politics – as in humour – there’s nothing new under the sun.